Household Gods

In the fever of discovery, she almost forgot how much pain she was in. She pushed herself away from the wall she’d been leaning against all this time, and looked around with eyes that saw almost clearly. Somewhere along here, she seemed to remember, was a stonecutter’s shop.

Yes, there it was, right in the next block – as if it had been placed there specifically for her need. Samples of the stonecutter’s work were laid out along the front of the shop, propped against the wall. Some were headstones; he’d probably done a land-office business in those while the pestilence raged in Carnuntum. The sample stones were distinguished by gender: a soldier, a woman in a tunic. There were even partial inscriptions, stock phrases awaiting the insertion of a name.

And yes, he had a selection of votive plaques, dedicated to a wide variety of gods and goddesses. None of those on display was inscribed to Liber and Libera.

She quelled the sinking in her stomach. Maybe he had one inside. If not, he could make one. She didn’t have to drift passively through this life. She could take matters into her own hands: manufacture, or have manufactured, her own way home. If she couldn’t change this world, she might still escape it.

She went boldly into the dim space with its odors of stone dust and old sweat, and asked her question in a voice that wasn’t too mushy, she didn’t think. He’d been picking away at a bit of garland on a tombstone, but when she spoke he looked up a little sharply; saw what had to be a heroically swollen face; and blinked once before resorting to a bland expression. “What, Riper and – oh; Liber. Yes, Liber and Libera. There’s one right here – two, actually, now I stop to think. People are right fond of Liber and Libera, likely ‘cause they’re right fond of what they’re god and goddess of.” He winked at her as if he expected her to share the joke, and pulled a pair of plaques from among the many on the wall behind him. “Here you are. Take your pick.”

Neither one was the plaque, the one she’d bought on her honeymoon. One was larger, one was smaller, both were rather cruder work. She eyed them in disappointment. Didn’t magic need a solid link between her now and her then? Preferably the same link?

Still, she thought with robust twentieth-century skepticism, would it be necessary? If she was making her own future, then all that mattered should be that the plaque was like the one she’d used to bring herself here.

Or she could have one made. But, from the look of the shop, he was backed up for weeks; and she couldn’t wait. She wanted out now. “I like the smaller one better,” she said firmly. “What do you want for it?”

“That one?” The stonecutter considered. “Ten sesterces ought to do it.”

Distracted by pain and fogged by wine and poppy juice as she was, Nicole remained astonished. The limestone from which he’d carved the plaque was surely cheap, but he couldn’t set much value on his own labor – either that, or he’d turned out the piece much faster than she would have thought possible. On the other hand, he wasn’t inclined to haggle, and she’d been too badly battered to bargain as hard as she would have otherwise. She paid him eight sesterces and a couple of asses in lieu of a dupondius. got him to throw in a piece of sacking to wrap her purchase in, and carried it home with as much care as if it had been made of glass.

Julia greeted her with a cry of dismay. “Mistress! You’ve got blood all over your tunic.”

Nicole looked down at herself. She hadn’t even noticed. No wonder the stonecutter had looked at her so oddly. He must have thought her husband had belted her a good one – and she was buying off the gods of wine to soften him up the next time he polished off a jar or two or three.

At least she knew a cure for blood on wool. “Cold water,” she said, “that’s what it needs. And wine.”

“Wine?” Julia frowned. “Wine doesn’t do a thing for bloodstains.”

“The wine is for me,” Nicole said. She sat at a table near the bar – nearly falling the last inch or two onto the bench – and uncovered the plaque so that Julia could see it. “I’ll give Liber and Libera a little, too.”

Julia seemed excited all out of proportion to the occasion. It must have been a slow day for Julia, upstairs as well as down. “Let me see!” she said eagerly. She didn’t wait for Nicole to finish making her way through the stools and benches and tables. She negotiated the course with more agility than Nicole could have managed just then, and peered at the low relief. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good. We could use a god or two to watch over us. ‘

If they watch over me as well as I’d like, Nicole thought, Iwon’t be here.